South African Minister of State Security Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba makes it clear that while the Jewish community is under no particular threat, the department of state security takes seriously its mandate to protect the country’s citizens.

Lawyers are preparing criminal and civil charges following one of the darkest weeks of anti-Semitism in South Africa. There have been a slew of vile incidents that sent shock waves through the community.

The SA Friends of the Beit Halochem Zahal Disabled Veterans Organisation was established in Johannesburg in 1982, its primary goal being to help and support Zahal disabled veterans by raising funds to help them return and resume their normal lives as soon as possible.

Dr Ali Bacher, former South African cricket captain and administrator, was one of the five recipients of the 2018 Steve Tshwete Lifetime Achievement Awards at the SA Sport Awards held in Bloemfontein on Sunday night.

Devotion to the cause of the State of Israel flourishes in the most unlikely places, even in societies where the Jewish presence is small to non-existent. Such is the case in Mozambique, where the work of Beth-El Associacao Crista Amigos De Israel - Mozambican Christian Friends of Israel - testifies to how much can be achieved by those inspired by their Christian faith to promote the Israeli cause, despite adverse conditions.

JNF’s unique “Blue Boy Box” now lives at King David Linksfield Pre-Primary so that children of each generation learn the importance of tzedakah (charity or welfare). It is the responsibility of Jews all over the world to build Israel, develop it and nurture it as the home of the Jewish nation

“Knowledge is Light” was our school motto when I was a child in Durban. The importance of education was made clear to us from as far back as I can remember. It wasn’t taken for granted. A good education was a privilege.

Late on Tuesday, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect. While at the time of writing the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had still not confirmed the existence of such a truce, Israeli citizens living in the south of the country were told they could return home and to “normalcy”.

The Israeli gymnastics team was out in full force at 48th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships that began at Aspire Dome in Doha, Qatar, on Thursday. There are five males and two females in the team headed by new Israeli sensation Artem Dolgopyat. The others are Alexander Shatilov, Ilan Korchak, Andrey Medvedev, and Michael Sorokine, while the women are Ofir Netzer and Meitar Lavy.

As I was heading home on Tuesday, I heard on ChaiFM that 460 rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel since late Sunday. That is an outrageous number. If every one of them hit inhabited areas, thousands of Israelis would have been killed.

“The president is not directly responsible for acts of domestic terrorism, but he should be more careful with his language.” That’s the way the Economist headlined its report on the horrific Pittsburgh killings just more than two weeks ago.

With Prince William’s historic visit to Israel this week, all eyes have been trained on the Jewish capital. It may have taken 70 years, but the first official visit by a member of the British Royal family began in Israel on Monday, when William, the Duke of Cambridge, arrived in Tel Aviv.

Some 5 600 emissaries (shluchim) from Chabad-Lubavitch from all over the world gathered at the Pier 8 warehouse in Brooklyn, New York this week for the opening of their four-day annual international conference and banquet, 75 years after the arrival of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, from Europe.

“The greatness of our nation is that our people are great. We are a nation of heroes, of people with good and decent moral fibre who will not tolerate our country being plundered!” So said Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein in Pretoria this morning.“This is a struggle for accountability and justice,” Goldstein told the crowd (which included prominent Jewish CEOs like Adrian Gore, Stephen Koseff and Michael Katz). “This struggle is about sovereignty. The power of the people always triumphs in the end.”

Great and very relevant reads from Bev

Bev brings JR Online readers some fascinating Zionist reads from around the world. Enjoy this week's fare Try these for size, and print out what you like for Shabbos reading:

by
BEV GOLDMAN | Feb 25, 2015

In her weekly OPINION & ANALYSIS blog, Bev Goldman brings Jewish Report Online readers some fascinating and most relevant reads from around the world. Try these for size, and print out what you like for Shabbos reading:

1. How UN mixes, anti-Semitism, Holocaust & Israeli war crimes

Anne Bayefsky, JCPA, January/February 2015

While focusing on anti-Semitism has been studiously avoided by the United Nations, the subject of the Holocaust has served as the consolation prize. The UN does not want to deal with anti-Semitism because the organization would be exposed as the global platform for anti-Semitism. The foreign policy of the majority of nations today condones and even promotes anti-Semitism. Five of all the ten emergency sessions of the General Assembly in its history attacked Israel. The Assembly did not hold one emergency session about genocide in Rwanda or Sudan. The most insidious argument is the ignorant and twisted claim that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict exacerbates anti-Semitism. At the root of this assertion is the idea that the victims of anti-Semitism have a responsibility to ameliorate the pathology of their enemies. How is it possible that in a matter of days the UN apparatus went from discussing anti-Semitism, to the Holocaust, to Israeli war crimes?

2. Islam and appeasement

G Murphy Donovan, American Thinker

Europe and America are impaled on the horns of a strategic dilemma. On the one hand, the world is besieged by jihadi religious terror, barbarity, and serial wars with jihadists. Concurrently, most of the civilized world defends the very religious cultures, Sunni and Shia Islam especially, where the problems originate. To be clear at the outset; with Islam today, there seems to be less and less daylight between secular and religious imperatives.

3. Defeating Islamic State requires comprehensive strategy

Paul McHale, Stars and Stripes

Speaking before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month, Secretary of State John Kerry described global terrorism as “nothing more than criminal anarchy, a nihilism which illegitimately claims an ideological and religious foundation.” Is he serious? A de facto Islamic caliphate has now been established in the heart of the Middle East and Kerry sees it as nothing more than a criminal conspiracy. Quick, call the cops.

4. Egypt’s war in the Sinai: a struggle that goes beyond Egypt

Yoram Schweitzer, INSS
Egypt is in the midst of a war that can be categorized as a low-intensity conflict. This category represents a common pattern of military campaigns in the early twenty-first century: sub-conventional wars fought by armies and security services belonging to states against armies of terrorilla- fully armed and hierarchical organizations that operate among civilian populations, combining guerilla and terror warfare tactics with the logic of terrorism. Egypt’s campaign in Sinai has tremendous significance for Israel.

5. Anti-Semitism is once more on the march in Europe

Richard Cohen, Washington Post
Anti-Semitism is the most durable and pliable of all conspiracy theories. It supposedly accounts for the death of Christ and the Jewish dominance of the liberal media. It carefully noted the disproportionate number of Jews in the communist movement and in the capitalist movement. Anti-Semitism can account for the wealth of the Jews and their scientific and artistic achievements. They are - we are - a most nimble people. We’ve had to be.

6. Obama’s secret Iran strategy

Michael Doran, Mosaic

The president has long been criticized for his lack of strategic vision. But what if a strategy, centred on Iran, has been in place from the start and consistently followed to this day? And how eager is the president to see Iran break through its isolation and become a very successful regional power? Very eager.